Van Halen
REM
Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five
Chic
Patti Smith
Dave Clark Five
The Ronettes
Joe Tex
The Stooges
Discuss.
(still no Warren, dammit!)
VCNJ~
This IS the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame we’re talking about, right?
Van Halen Yes, yes yes. They deserve it. Thumbs up.
REM Not my thing, but I can see how they should get inducted.
Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five Uhhhh, no. If they ever build a Hip Hop Hall of Fame, then yes, they should be the first ones in. After the Sugar Hill Gang.
Chic I’m ambivalent about their induction.
Patti Smith Ambivalent.
Dave Clark Five Ambivalent.
The Ronettes They deserve it.
Joe Tex Ambivalent.
The Stooges Tough call.
I think these are the nominees rather than the inductees. For what it’s worth.
As mentioned, this is the nominee list…
REM - Great band, certainly representitive of the movement of indie rock to mainstream. Is this their first year of eligability?
Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five - I agree with Heyhomie, certainly top in the hip hop category, but while I havent’ been to downtown Cleveland lately I belive the sign says on the front door “ROCK AND ROLL” HOF…
Chic - To me this seems to be more for the Guy (who’s name escapes me right now… ) who went on to be a very succesful producer, incl Madonna’s earlier stuff. Again not sure this is R&R materal.
Patti Smith - Sure I guess…
Dave Clark Five - They should get into the “Beatles Knock off” HOF perhaps, but R&R?
The Ronettes - I agree, if for nothing else than Ronnie pector putting up w/ Phil.
Joe Tex - This falls into the category of “lets find some obscure artist that only the really cool in the know people even have heard of…” I’d say Joe can stand in line behind some groups whose albums actually were distributed beyond only out of the back of a '67 Nova…
The Stooges - To me, Iggy has always fallen in with the Kiss mentality… know as much for reputation/persona as musicality. I’d probably lean towards no myself, even though that critera probably would exclude a band that I think should be in, Devo.
To me it seems that the hall is kinda dredging some bands to avoid inducting perhaps some who the nominating committe may not find as popular, i.e. Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, RUSH, Genesis, hell even Kraftwerk (I think they are eligable now…).
Since we’re coming up on 25 years for the New Wave genre, I’ll be curious to see who they pick out of that group.
Another person I’d like to see inducted in the hall for non-muscian, which will never happen, is Hilly Kristal, owner of CBGB. I’d say few people were as influencial on kicking off bands in the late 70’s / early 80’s… IMHO
Apparently, five of these nominees will be inducted: link
Moderator note: Since these seem to be nominees rather than inductees, I have changed the thread title accordingly.
**Van Halen ** - completely deserved
**REM ** - brilliant first 4 albums; hugely influential to where rock went in the late 80’s and 90’s - completely deserved.
**Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five ** - GMFlash invented “two turntables and a microphone” - literally. DJ Kool Herc invented rapping and breakdowns, but Flash took two Tecnics TT’s and wired them together with a fader. And with The Message, they took rap to a politically-conscious place for the first time. Should the RRHOF move to rap? Nah. But are these guys the originators and ones that split rap/hip-hop off from rock/funk/soul/RnB? Yep. If any hip hop artist deserves to get in, it would be these guys (although I would also add Run-DMC for their rap/rock crossover, and Public Enemy, because they fuckin’ rock hard in any genre)
**Chic ** - indifferent
**Patti Smith ** - she’ll get in first ballot, no question.
**Dave Clark Five ** - nah.
**The Ronettes ** - frankly, kinda indifferent. Spector was too central to their sound and he has been recognized
**Joe Tex ** - indifferent
**The Stooges ** - oh, hell yes. Profoundly influential to all punk and hard rock that came after.
Nile Rodgers.
Thank you. I’ve been sufficiently nit-pummeled over my mistake, I think 
VCNJ~
My takes:
Van Halen- I don’t care for them myself, but they deserve a spot.
REM- Another yes.
Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five- I decline to comment.
Chic- Nile Rodgers probably deserve entry at some point for his production work, but I do not believe that Chic produced enough of note to merit entry in the performers category.
Patti Smith- Another decline to comment.
Dave Clark Five- No.
The Ronettes- A bit too second-tier within their genre, especially when compared to The Marvelettes, who are not in the Hall.
Joe Tex- I haven’t been able to make up my mind with this one.
The Stooges- Still another decline to comment.
Still no Rush, and yet The Ronettes? I’ve barely ever heard a Ronettes song on the radio, and yet I clearly remember Rush battling Led Zepplin for “Greatest Band” (or whatever) on 95.5 KLOS, Los Angeles, per listener votes. They were the final two.
The Ronettes were one of the bigger girl groups to come out of the 60s. Their lead singer was Ronnie Spector and they were produced by Phil Spector. Ronnie had some success in the 1980s and 90s and is still pretty influential. Phil, well, the less said about that, the better.
If The Ronettes make it in, they won’t be the first girl group inducted into the Hall. The Supremes made it in in 1988 and the Shirelles were inducted in 1996. My feeling is, if you want to recognize a group for one of its members, fine. Nominate the member.
Robin
Please. Since its very inception, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been assumed to cover all aspects of modern pop and rock music. Current inductees include Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, Simon and Garfunkel, The Four Tops, Johnny Cash, The Shirelles, and the Dells, not one of whom would have been called “rock and roll.” If they don’t leave out jazz, Motown, blues and folk, why leave out rap and hip hop?
And KISS (among many, many others) doesn’t deserve even a nomination? Riiigggghhht. The RnR “Hall of Fame” is a joke. Who are these yahoos?
+1 - and you can’t get more important and influential than Grandmaster Flash…
I don’t know anything about Joe Tex, and there may be other worthy contenders, but this strikes me as an excellent list. All the nominees are hugely influential. And Bernie Edwards from Chic was at least as important as Nile Rodgers.
If I had to choose 5 (in order):
Stooges
Chic
Grandmaster Flash &
Smith
Van Halen
Much as I love Mr Zevon - I think I have ten of his records - he doesn’t rate in terms of influence or sales.
Add me to the list of Chic fans who think these guys were incredibly influential. They took the cheese of disco and fused it with rock/pop. Ergo Duran Duran, INXS, and a whole lot of bands that did the pop/rock funk thing.
Nile Rodgers - who hasn’t this guy produced? Madonna, Diana Ross, Mick Jagger, Dave Lee Roth (!!!), David Bowie, INXS, Duran Duran… list goes on. If you danced to it in the 1980s he probably had a hand in it.
Bernie Edwards - one of the most talented bassists ever. The album “Diana” was more of a Rodgers/Edwards showcase with Ms. Ross contributing vocals. That has to be one of the best crossover R&B/pop records of all time.
Tony Thompson - powerful drummer, backbone of The Power Station. Hugely successful session player.
Realistically, Chic was an outlet for some of the most talented session players in the business in the late 70s-early 80s. The female leads are more or less interchangeable from my perspective. Tragic that Bernie and Tony are no longer with us, but these guys deserve it.
Patti Smith, R.E.M., Van Halen, Joe Tex… gosh, they all seem deserving. Ronettes as well, but weren’t they more a product of Spector’s production? Stooges, yes. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five? I personally think they are deserving but I think some of the arguments voiced by folks in this thread will keep them out on the first ballot.
And don’t forget it was his bass line that was sampled for the Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight…that was off Chic’s Good Times, if I recall.
I love Chic and I suppose I can see the influence on dance-able 80’s rock as you mention. My inclination would be to nominate Nile Rogers for his production work more than the band, though…simply from a rock n’ roll standpoint…
I think he does rate in terms of influence. In the 1970’s, the singer-songwriter movement was comprised of guys doing ballads or piano and guitar based folk or folk rock (James Taylor, Jim Croce, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, etc.). In the meantime, the LA music scene was being increasingly dominated by laid-back, tuneful yet safe music from groups like The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Zevon came along, and kicked them all in the ass. After Zevon, the LA music scene took on a harder edge, as did the singer-songwriter movement. The Eagles hung out a lot with Zevon, and recorded on pretty much all of hs albums of that era. And during that time, they moved from the laid back country-rock of “Desperado” into more edgy music on “Hotel California” and “The Long Run”. Part of that credit goes to Joe Walsh, but Zevon gets some as well.
Rolling Stone said that Zevon’s emergence changed the LA music scene, and called “Excitable Boy” one of the great albums of the 1970’s. They considered him one of the four most important artists to emerge from the 1970’s, along with Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne (all of whom, except for Zevon, are now in the Hall of Fame).
Zevon’s influence has extended into the indie scene, and he’s been a big influence on all sorts of bands.
Zevon’s influence may not be very public, but if you ask actual musical artists who their influences are, Zevon’s name comes up a lot. You can see that by the sheer number of people who lined up to play on Zevon’s albums - all of the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen, David Lindley, Jackson Browne, REM, Neil Young, George Clinton, Bob Dylan, David Gilmour, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, and many others. And since Zevon’s albums didn’t exactly sell in the millions (or usually not even in the hundreds of thousands), these people didn’t do it for money. They did it because they wanted to play with Warren Zevon.
Zevon’s music has been covered hundreds of times by many big artists. Linda Ronstadt’s career was kicked off when she had hits with covers of “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and “Carmelita”. The title of Bob Dylan’s "Comback’ album, Time out of Mind comes from a Zevon song. Dylan plays Zevon covers regularly in concert.
And his influence extended beyond music. His songs were used in several movies including “Midnight Cowboy”, one of his songs was the theme song to a TV show, and other was the title of a movie (“Things to do in Denver when You’re Dead”). He was the musical director for the Everly brothers. He was the replacement musical director for Paul Shaffer on Late Night with David Letterman. When he announced his cancer, Letterman had him as the only guest for a full hour, and at the Grammy’s next year he was the only artist to get a memorial performance while the others who died that year just got the typical “In Memoriam” 5 seconds as they flashed through all the deaths.
He was also influential on a number of writers. Carl Hiassen has said that Zevon influenced him greatly. Zevon co-wrote songs with a number of writers including Hiasson, Mitch Albom, Paul Muldoon, and Hunter S. Thompson.
Longevity should count as well, and Zevon continued to produce high quality music for 30 years, and his last album was one of his most popular and won two Grammy awards.
I think that resume beats Joe Tex and Chic.